At the Poland-Ukraine border

The streets were completely empty in the middle of the night, except for the occasional drunk tumbling his way around. There were no shops or houses, only currency exchange offices, one after the other. I found one that was open and exchanged my Polish zloty to Ukrainian hryvnia with a woman who looked perplexed to see me there.

I wanted to cross the Poland-Ukraine border by foot, get a stamp on my passport and while I was at it visit one of the main cultural centers of Ukraine: charming little Lviv.

Easier said than done.

There was only one way for me to get to Lviv at this hour and that was by talking to a random man and paying him to take me there. I was scared but what choice did I have? I had just missed the latest one so I had to sit on the cold, dirty curb and wait for the next decrepit van that came my way.

A middle aged man that smelled strongly of alcohol approached me but he seemed to be accompanied by a lady friend of sorts, and she looked pissed he had made an advance at me. She stormed off down the dark street with the man stumbling after her and slurring his apologies. This gave me the chance to hide in the corner of an abandoned exchange office that had no door and even though I had not slept for hours and I was exhausted I did not dare close my eyes and sleep. Horrible scenarios kept creeping up in my mind but I tried pushing them away.

Finally, another van approached the station and I hurried towards it. A few old women were also going to Lviv and it put my at ease to know I was not going to be riding in the van alone. One of the women started making hand gestures and talking to me. I couldn’t understand her language but her meaning was clear to me; she was trying to tell me to keep an eye on my purse and be careful. I suddenly appreciated how in the middle of uncertain times some nice people would surface and be kind to strangers.

For the first time in hours I smiled.